Golden Devotion

Listening to Afro-Zen Allstars means being transported to a different place, to a different time. It means joining a sublime, multicultural vision conceived by George M. Lowe, a warm, devoted autodidact I had the pleasure of speaking with recently.

Lowe’s journey with music has been as profound as any you’ll find. He taught himself to read and write music at the age of 42. (“There was a time when I played eight or nine different instruments,” he mentioned at one point.) He then learned to arrange and score without any formal training. And music helped him find his way during one of the darkest emotional times you can imagine.

Now, he’s reviving the Golden Age of Ethiopian music via his Afro-Zen Allstars, an ensemble of some of Richmond’s most talented, jazziest and funkiest musicians. I fell in love with their Greatest Hits album, a debut collection that showcases the group’s precision and versatility. We sat down for lunch at Addis, the delicious Ethiopian restaurant off the 17th Street Farmers Market, and in between bites of fasolia, I asked him about how his incredible musical journey started.

When did you start playing in bands?

My wife died at the end of 1995, in fact on New Year’s Eve. It was an extremely tragic situation...I was a mess, and I ended up joining my favorite band as a means to give myself something to look forward to. My dearest friend Paul Watson, who is a renowned Richmond musician, had recently joined the Ululating Mummies, and he invited me to come to a rehearsal…At first I didn’t want to. I had been a musician since I was a teen, but had never been in a band, due to extreme performance anxiety. But I did [go] and then I realized it would be a good thing for me.

They were only playing six or seven times a year at the time, but I needed more so I really pushed. And in the three years I was in the band we played 100 gigs. I left them and I didn’t play with anybody — I was just focusing on recording at home — for four years. And then Rattlemouth contacted me. Two of them were members of the Mummies, [and] they wanted to play some of my compositions. I wasn’t sure that I was up to it, because their music was technically demanding. Everything was right at the edge of my chops. I had to work really hard. I played with them for 10 years, and we played nothing but original music for years. At the time that I joined Rattlemouth — in the same week — I joined another band, Hotel X, and we played African-influenced music and African music.

Can you describe the “Golden Age” of Ethiopian music?

There was a period of time in Ethiopia from the late 1960s to 1974 where there was a very thriving, booming music scene that combined elements of traditional Ethiopian music as well as some Western influences. There was some absolutely magical stuff that was happening there.

In 1974, there was a military coup, and it turned into a Marxist dictatorship that completely shut down the culture for 18 years. It robbed the world of that music. The first record of tradition-based modern Ethiopian music to be released in the West was in 1987. I heard that record and it took five seconds for me to be completely hooked forever.

Multiculturalism is so important right now, and Afro-Zen Allstars represents that in a powerful way, I think. What motivates you to bring this music to life in Richmond?

I have often said, and it’s not as true as it used to be, that those guys aren’t going to come here and play this stuff for us. It’s important music and people need to hear it. I’ve been really torn. Originally, I wanted to do exclusively Ethiopian music. But I’ve scored so much stuff that isn’t Ethiopian that I really love, that eventually I couldn’t stick to that. The [band’s repertoire] currently has 55 tunes in it, and in addition to Ethiopia, it includes songs from Mali, Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Rajasthan, Cuba, Mexico, Senegal, Benin…we just learned a piece from Benin that is so cool, I can’t even stand it. I can’t wait to play it.

I do this stuff to increase the amount of joy in the world. Nothing brings people together quite like music does, and being exposed to the musical culture of some other place can result in understanding more and grasping the fact that people are much more alike than they are different.

I saw you made Greatest Hits at Minimum Wage Recording with Lance Kohler. How did you enjoy working with Lance?

Lance is a community treasure, for certain. Not only is he a great guy, but he’s awfully good at what he does... I hate to record. I mean, I really hate to record. Even when I had a studio at my house, I hated to record. Minimum Wage is the only place I’ve worked where I had any level of comfort. The session we did — we did one day and we got 10 songs, seven of them in one take, and I was completely comfortable the entire time. It was wonderful…it was just so easy. It was a testament to the gentlemen who play with me. Being in the studio can be stressful, and studio time can be a divisive time, [but] it showed these guys to be utterly good-natured and completely supportive of each other and total pros.

You write arrangements for some of the strongest players in the city’s music scene. What’s it like working with such talented musicians?

I’m constantly amazed at my good fortune. I hand them the charts, they very quickly look over the charts, and within 10 minutes, most times, we’re already playing it pretty much perfectly and ready to be in front of people — oftentimes the first time through. It’s insane. Written music is a language, and these guys are extremely fluent…While it’s true that this is my project, it’s the people that participate that have made it truly special.